This photo was taken following a Baby Memorial Service.
I attended the service as a musician but it is a particularly painful loss that I have never experienced personally. The sadness in the midst of that group of people was tangible and some families had lost multiple children.
In our previous church one family lost a baby shortly after birth, another lost a teenage son to cancer and two families lost adult children (both to cancer). Others in and around these times talked about their children taken away before time from years ago, the heaviness of the weight of wounds remembered once more.
No matter what stage in life this happens, it is an unbelievably painful, raw, lonely and bleak loss.
And there are the other losses too, family, friendship, health, employment, security, homes..
In the aftermath of loss unanswered questions hang in the air. Letting go is difficult.
Because the wounds of loss are often deep healing takes time. Steps towards disentangling peace from pain can be almost imperceptible, silently.mending.
On this day Good Friday we remember that love does its most significant work.
Releasing us from all of our sins once and for all.
In the agonising, raw and lonely pain of Jesus' death, the self-imposed injuries of our hearts are noiselessly and gently bound piece by piece.
A painstaking work in progress.
Your hands, though bloodied on the cross
survive to hold and heal and warn,
to carry all through death to life
and cradle children yet unborn.
Inspiration from lyrics of We cannot measure how you heal
